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Oral history interview with Christopher Rauschenberg, 2016

Creator: Rauschenberg, Christopher, 1951-
Project: Robert Rauschenberg Foundation oral history collection.
(see all project interviews)
Phys. Desc. :Transcript: 172 pages
Location: Columbia Center for Oral History
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Biographical Note

Christopher Rauschenberg is a photographer and the son of Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil. He is the cofounder and president of the board of directors of Blue Sky, a nonprofit exhibition space in Portland, Oregon, where he has cocurated over eight hundred solo exhibitions by almost as many artists since 1975. He earned a bachelor's degree in photography from Evergreen State College, and he has worked as a photographer since the early 1970s. He has exhibited his own work with over a hundred solo exhibitions in eight countries, and his work appears in several major museum collections. Since 2009, Rauschenberg has served as the president of the board of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and, until 2017, as chairperson

Scope and Contents

Christopher Rauschenberg, Robert Rauschenberg's son, discusses his early life, learning how to make photographs from his mother, Susan Weil. He describes his relationship with his father and how it changed and evolved over the years. He discusses his own life: his time at Evergreen College and meeting his now-wife; opening Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR; his approach to photography. He reflects on his father's photographs and the overlapping themes in both his and his father's work, namely the passage of time. He talks about traveling with Rauschenberg for exhibit openings and Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) trips. He describes visiting his dad at his property on Captiva Island, FL and the relationships he had with the other artists and staff. He reflects on his father's posthumous legacy and his impact on the art world and emerging artists

Subjects

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2016

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